Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- In petrography, noting the cracking or parting of rocks upon shrinking, commonly from cooling, whereby they break into spheroidal masses. It is the same phenomenon as perlitic cracking in volcanic glasses. The term is sometimes used as a synonym of orbicular as applied to certain granites and diorites.
- Of or pertaining to, or having the form of, a spheroid.
- In crystallography, globose; bounded by several convex faces.
- In entomology, round and prominent, appearing like a ball or sphere partly buried in the surface: as, spheroidal eyes: spheroidal eoxæ.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Having the form of a spheroid.
- adjective (Physics.) the state of a liquid, as water, when, on being thrown on a surface of highly heated metal, it rolls about in spheroidal drops or masses, at a temperature several degrees below ebullition, and without actual contact with the heated surface, -- a phenomenon due to the repulsive force of heat, the intervention of a cushion of nonconducting vapor, and the cooling effect of evaporation.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Like a
spheroid . Roughlyspherical , approximately round, roughly ball shaped. - noun A
spheroid
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective having the nature or shape of an ellipsoid
Etymologies
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Examples
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It appears that all 'spheroidal' galaxies have a supermassive black hole at the centre,
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That does not make the spheroidal pebble the pinnacle of the art form.
Archive 2010-05-01 Blue Tyson 2010
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Red and gray chips of the world's most sophisticated nano-thermite, or super-thermite, are dispersed throughout the approximately 30,000 tons of dust generated in the demolitions of WTC 1, 2, and 7; so too are maybe 10 tons of tiny iron-rich spheroidal droplets, another signature of super-thermite explosives.
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The available data reveal the existence of a remarkably tight correlation between the mass of the central SMBH and the central stellar velocity dispersion of the host galaxy spheroidal component, suggesting a fundamental mechanism connecting the properties of SMBHs with those of their host galaxies.
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Red and gray chips of the world's most sophisticated nano-thermite, or super-thermite, are dispersed throughout the approximately 30,000 tons of dust generated in the demolitions of WTC 1, 2, and 7; so too are maybe 10 tons of tiny iron-rich spheroidal droplets, another signature of super-thermite explosives.
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So the nekkid,green-haired spheroidal beings went down to the carport and blasted off to…. nightshayde says:
Monorail Cat derails after - Lolcats 'n' Funny Pictures of Cats - I Can Has Cheezburger? 2008
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But here it might be argued, on the other hand, that the spheroidal Echinoids, in reality, depart further from the general plan and from the embryonic form than the elongated Spatangoids do; and that the peculiar dental apparatus and the pedicellariae of the former are marks of at least as great differentiation as the petaloid ambulacra and semitae of the latter.
Essays 2007
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The Echinidea, again, are frequently quoted as exhibiting a gradual passage from a more generalized to a more specialized type, seeing that the elongated, or oval, Spatangoids appear after the spheroidal Echinoids.
Essays 2007
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Sterile neutrinos may also help to understand the baryon-asymmetry, the pulsar kicks, the early growth of black holes, the minimum mass of dwarf spheroidal galaxies, as well as the shape and smoothness of dark matter halos.
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But, exactly in those respects in which the developing Man differs from the Dog, he resembles the ape, which, like man, has a spheroidal yelk-sac and a discoidal — sometimes partially lobed — placenta.
Essays 2007
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